Our Actions Impact People All Over the World

KATIE COURIC: How you got the title of your book The Blue Sweater is a strange, wonderful story. Can you explain it?

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: When I was a little girl, I was given a sweater by my Uncle Ed, which I wore all the time, into high school. There were mountains right across the chest.

KATIE COURIC: [Laughs.] I can guess what comes next.

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: My high school nemesis yelled across the hall that the boys didn't have to go to the mountains to ski anymore; they could use my sweater. My mother and I ceremoniously gave the sweater to Goodwill. Fast-forward 10 years, when I was in Rwanda: I was jogging, and suddenly I see this little boy in front of me, wearing my sweater.

KATIE COURIC: So weird.

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: It was crazy. I ran up to the child. I'm one of seven kids, so our names were often in our clothes. I turned the collar, and there was my name. I was like, Ah! That's what I've held as a metaphor for how our actions impact people all over the world.

KATIE COURIC: In 2001 you started the Acumen Fund, a nonprofit that invests in entrepreneurs who find innovative ways to provide services for the poor. What is the fund's goal?

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: No less than to overturn the way that we look at and solve poverty.

KATIE COURIC: What is your philosophy about global poverty?

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: That the human spirit is extraordinary. If we give the 3 billion people who live in poverty the opportunity to change their lives, they will. For too long, we've looked at needing to "save" these people—with an emphasis on "these people"—rather than removing the constraints keeping them from solving their own problems.

KATIE COURIC: So it's just slightly opening the window of opportunity?

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: Yeah. That's why [at Acumen] we focus on the basics: health care, water, housing. What you see with health care, for instance, is that when there is a calamity, like when a child gets malaria, people have to pay enormous amounts that keep them in poverty forever. If you can deliver affordable health care, you see people able to solve their problems again.

KATIE COURIC: So is it teaching a man to fish versus giving him a fish?

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: It actually goes beyond that. Here's an example: 1.5 billion people lack proper access to electricity. Many buy kerosene, which can cost 30 percent of their income. It sends millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. And often the lamp will fall over and catch the house on fire. So mothers hate it, but it's their only option. A guy named Sam Goldman at Stanford University developed a solar lamp for $10 that looks like a water bottle. You hang it on your roof, and the sun [charges] it all day.

KATIE COURIC: How long do they last?

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: Years. In some villages, we see 25 to 50 percent increases in income in three months because people aren't spending their money on kerosene.

KATIE COURIC: How did the Acumen Fund help make this possible?

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: No traditional investor was going to invest in a low-cost solar lamp. When Sam and his partners were first developing it, we gave $200,000; later, we put in more than $1 million.

KATIE COURIC: What other kinds of businesses are you funding?

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: We've invested $40 million that has reached tens of millions of people and has created 25,000 jobs. We gave a $250,000 loan to an organization in Kenya for a low-income housing settlement outside the [Nairobi] slums. The experts said, "Slum dwellers will never move." But when I talked to women in the slums, they were like, "Give me 10 minutes. I'll pack my bags." My friend Jane, an HIV positive ex-prostitute, was living in squalor. Because of the settlement, she bought her own house. When I went to see her, it was like a Disney movie. All the houses are cement block, and in the middle was one trimmed in orange and green with sunflowers growing. Jane was like, "That's my house!" She has a mortgage that matches what she paid in the slums. But now she has a two-bedroom house for her and her kids with a kitchen, bathroom and garden.

KATIE COURIC: At one point, you were going to be a pretty traditional banker, right?

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: I'd never wanted to be a banker, but my parents essentially begged me to interview. I ended up at an interview with Chase Manhattan Bank. The guy said, "Tell me why you want to be a banker." And I said, "Actually, I don't. But my parents are making me go through this." Truth. And he said, "Well, too bad, because if you got this job, you'd be in 40 countries over the next two years." I said, "Can we start over?" I left the room, came back and said, "Hi. I'm Jacqueline Novogratz." And he said, "Tell me why you want to be a banker." And I was like, "Ever since I was six, that was my dream." For whatever reason, I got the job.

KATIE COURIC: Did you always want to better the world?

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: As a six-year-old in Catholic school whose dad was in Vietnam, I wanted to be a nun—or a saint, even better. [Laughs.] I'd give all my money to the poor box. I wanted to be good. What evolved was believing that this is the most interesting work there is on the planet.

KATIE COURIC: Do you ever feel hopeless?

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: Never. The most emotional I felt was after a meeting I attended in a Nairobi slum with people who had read The Blue Sweater. One young man said, "Jacqueline and I look different, but in many ways, we're the same. The difference is she got to go to good schools, and I couldn't even get to high school because I couldn't afford the bribes to get past the entrance exam." I went home that night feeling an unbelievable mix of emotions: elation at the human connectedness, and deep sadness that they're not having opportunity. And I started a letter to my parents to say, "Thank you for everything you've given me," and I just couldn't stop the tears.

KATIE COURIC: You get a lot of letters from young people. I know you're impressed with this generation's commitment to serving others.

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: This generation is off-the-charts incredible. There is this optimism and sophistication that I see in young people.

KATIE COURIC: Which is surprising, given what challenging times we're living in. Maybe that's making people dig deeper and wonder what really counts.

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: And I think they want to build lives of meaning.

KATIE COURIC: This question is from reader Liz in Portland, Oregon: What organizations can you recommend to help those in need?

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: There are so many. Look at those focused on sustainable solutions. Teach for America invests in our school system. Endeavor builds entrepreneurs in the developing world. Root Capital builds businesses in Africa and Latin America. That's just three.

KATIE COURIC: Your nuns would be very proud. They might even think you qualify for sainthood.

JACQUELINE NOVOGRATZ: Oh, no. Trust me, Katie. [Laughs.] What I do feel is blessed. There are moments when I'm like, "Oh my God, we can really do this."